ANNUAL REPORT· 1975 J \ American Historical Association ANNUAL REPORT· 1975 SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION PRESS City of Washington For sale by the Superintendent of Documents U.S. Government Printing Office Washington, D.C. 20402 ll Contents Page Letters of Submittal and Transmittal . v Act of Incorporation . vii Presidential Address . ....... Background . 17 Constitution . 21 Officers, Council, Nominating Committee, Committee on Committees, and Board of Trustees for 1976 . 29 Officers' Reports President . 31 Vice-Presidents: Professional Division . 35 Research Division . 45 Teaching Division . 55 Executive Director . 61 Controller . 83 Membership Statistics . 99 Minutes of the Council Meetings . I 05 Minutes of the Ninetieth Business Meeting . 125 Report of the Nominating Committee . 133 Report of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association . 135 Report of the Program Chairman . 141 Program of the Ninetieth Annual Meeting . 145 iii Letters of Submittal and Transniittal June 15, 1976 To the Congress of the United States: In accordance with the act of incorporation of the American His­ torical Association, approved January 4, 1889, I have the honor of submitting to Congress the Annual Report of the Association for the year 1975. Respectfully, S. Dillon Ripley, Secretary SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION WASHINGTON, D.C. June 15, 1976 To the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution: As provided by law. I submit to you herewith the report of the American Historical Association, comprising the proceedings of the Association and the report of its Pacific Coast Branch for 1975. This volume constitutes the Association's report on the condition of historical study in the United States. Mack Thompson, Executive Director AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION WASHINGTON, D.C. v Act of Incorporation Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That Andrew D. White, of Ithaca, in the State of New York; George Bancroft, of Washington, in the District of Columbia; Justin Winsor, of Cam­ bridge, in the State of Massachusetts; William F. Poole, of Chicago, in the State of Illinois; Herbert B. Adams, of Baltimore, in the State of Maryland; Clarence W. Bowen, of Brooklyn, in the State of New York, their associates and successors, are hereby created, in the District of Columbia, a body corporate and politic by the name of the American Historical Association, for the promotion of historical studies, the collection and preservation of historical manuscripts, and for kindred purposes in the interest of American history, and of history in America. Said Association is authorized to hold real and personal estate in the District of Columbia as far as may be necessary to its lawful ends, to adopt a constitution, and make bylaws not inconsistent with law. Said Association shall have its principal office at Washington, in the District of Columbia, and may hold its annual meetings in such places as the said incorpora­ tors shall determine. Said Association shall report annually to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, concerning its proceedings and the condition of historical study in America. Said Secretary shall communicate to Congress the whole of such report, or such portions thereof as he shall see fit. The Regents of the Smithsonian Institution are authorized to permit said Association to deposit its collections, manuscripts, books, pamphlets, and other material for history in the Smithsonian Institution or in the National Museum, at their discretion, upon such conditions and under such rules as they shall prescribe. The real property situated in Square 817, in the city of Washing­ ton, District of Columbia, described as lot 23, owned, occupied, and used by the American Historical Association, is exempt from vii all taxation so long as the same is so owned and occupied, and not used for commercial purposes, subject to the provisions of sections 2, 3, and 5 of the Act entitled, "An Act to define the real property exempt from taxation in the District of Columbia," approved December 24, 1942. [Approved, January 4, 1889, and amended July 3, 1957.] viii PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS as a Moral GORDON WRIGHT Some years ago, a young American historian undertook the some­ what ghoulish task of unearthing all of the presidential addresses delivered before the American Historical Association the first fifty years of its existence. 1 His purpose, in addition to earning the doctorate, was to discover the kinds of issues that confronted the profession during that half century-or, at the issues that presidents of the association thought to be of central importance. Occasionally these addresses created a mild stir of and even some discussion; a few endured to be read and reread by later generations, as milestones or monuments of the historiographical enterprise. More commonly, they inspired such comments as that of Carl Becker shortly after the 1936 convention: "I went to Provi­ dence for the meeting of the AH.A-a terrible crush of about 1000 registrations: difficult to see anyone accident .... McI!wain didn't do himself justice in the Pres. Ad.· but then very few do."2 The history of this particular ritual thus offers at least one warn­ ing: those who practice it might do well not to take their pro­ nouncements as the voice of God or the crystallized wisdom of the ages. It may be significant that AHA custom calls on the president to speak ex cathedra not at the outset of his term of office but at This presidential address was delivered by Mr. Wright at the annual meet­ ing of the American Historical Association, Atlanta, December 28, 1975. 1 Herman Ausubel, Historians and Their Craft (New York, 1950). ~Becker to Leo and Ida Gersboy, February 7, l 937, in "What ls the Good of History?" Selected Letters of Carl L. Becker, 1900-1945, edited by Michael Kammen (Ithaca, 1973), 252. 1 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION the very end, only forty-eight hours before he "passes into history," as the saying goes. By that time it is much too late for him to make promises, to influence the association's future course, or even to be held to answer for his stewardship or for such sophistries as his swan song may contain. He is allowed one Parthian shot-a ges­ ture that no doubt has symbolic value, but that wins few battles, and rarely creates enduring legends. How, then, should one perform this ritual most expeditiously and constructively? Seeking guidance from past practice, I find that presidential addresses seem to fall into one of three broad cate­ gories: those that reminisce, in the fashion of "forty years on"; those that embody the fruits of specialized scholarship; and those that seek to advance a cause or convey a message. The first sort possesses a nostalgic charm and provides the audience with a tran­ quil evening. The second, much favored over the years, takes the form of a learned essay focused on the speaker's own special field, offered as a gemlike miniature, a model of the mature research and reflection to which we all aspire, a tribute to the seriousness of learning. When performed with mastery, such a presentation may inspire historians far beyond the limited field of the speaker him­ self. It has the further merit of insulating the speaker against seri­ ous criticism and thus ensuring him a quiet departure from office, undisturbed by ironic witticisms or cries of outrage. The third variety of presidential pronouncement involves more serious risks. It seeks to identify a broad issue that cuts across many fields of history, that relates to what most of us do in our professional capacity, and that either opens a new debate or, more commonly, reopens an old one. It poses a question that has been, either consciously or subconsciously, nagging at the speaker's psyche and at those of at least some of his fellow historians. Its tone can range from the calmly reflective through the confidently prescriptive to the downright preachy. It may stir up a storm; it may fade quietly into the night, like any puff of hot air. The record shows that the association has seen and heard a considerable variety of manifestoes of this sort. A title such as "History as a Moral Science" clearly belongs in the "message" category, and probably in its more preachful sub­ division. Furthermore, it may seem almost recklessly provocative. The idea of consciously reintroducing the moral dimension into history runs counter to the basic training of most historians, and probably to their professional instinct as wel1. Each of us has some 2 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS strong views on the general subject of morality; each of us knows the dangers involved in making moral judgments in our work, or even suggesting a need for them. Worse still, a phrase like "moral science" has both a paradoxical and an anachronistic ring; it evokes the Victorian era, the times of Mill, Emerson, and Acton, when life was real and earnest and when coupling the words "moral" and "science" did not yet seem a case of illegal miscegenation. True, the phrase has survived in vestigial form into our own day: witness the French and the Belgian Academies of Moral and Political Sci­ ences, which include historians within their ranks-though whether they belong to the political or moral branch is not entirely clear. But even the members of those academies, I suspect, would no longer try to argue very vigorously for resurrecting the phrase "moral science"-unless they happen to have a taste for the archaic. Although presidents of this association have often prescribed or preached from this podium, it has been a long time since one ven­ tured rashly into the swamps of moral and value judgments. Henry Charles Lea did it in 1903, entitling his much-quoted address "Ethical Values in History""-and prudently absenting himself from the convention while the corresponding secretary read out his speech.